Brian Harms master’s student at the Southern California School of Architecture in Los Angeles has developed a method that can use robotic arms to 3D print on gel tanks, allowing free-form printing without structural support and possibly adding “undo” “Function to debug.
The project aims to increase the agility of the manufacturing process through organized materials and robotic processes, thus blurring the boundaries between design and manufacturing processes. The project employs the feedback perimeter that allows the process to benefit as a real-time data and shape search tool, as well as a method for verifying design objects.
The material used for this project is a gel that can accept this type of liquid resin placed by the robot when it hardens, thus anticipating the shortcomings of other 3D printing technologies.
In this three-dimensional printing technology, you design a structure that does not allow the object to collapse next to the target.
The process also supports vector-based printing, which means that the print head can be moved in three dimensions without having to build objects from very thin two-dimensional layers.
Brian Harms said. “By injecting and suspending the photopolymerizable resin in a gel-like medium, you can freely mold the object’s ability without the use of molds or other subtractive manufacturing processes that would otherwise have to be performed.”
During exposure, the resin used for printing hardens and is injected through a special needle-shaped print head developed by Harms and his team, which is mounted on a robotic arm. Once the object is removed from the gel, the gel can be reused. This technology allows potentially undoing parts of the printed object, extracting or removing the still uncured resin from the gel without affecting the rest of the structure.